It isnât uncommon for folks to just wake up one morning and decide they arenât in the mood to head into work. And letâs face it, nobody wants to waste a vacation day on that, so the only logical thing to do is attempt your best scratchy throat voice and call in sick, and it seems a lot of people are doing just that.
A new CareerBuilder survey finds that in the last 12 months about 40% of workers have called in sick when they werenât, which is up 5% from last year. As for why people are calling in sick when they arenât ill, the top excuse is having a doctorâs appointment (30%), followed by:
- Didnât feel like going to work (23%)
- Needing to relax (20%0
- Needing to catch up on sleep (15%)
- Running errands (14%)
- Catching up on housework (8%)
- Plans with family and friends (8%)
Of course, you canât exactly tell your boss youâre calling in sick because you need to relax or run some errands, so a lot of people resort to making up excuses, but that could be dangerous. The survey finds that 38% of employers say theyâve checked up on a worker to confirm that they were actually sick, while 26% have fired someone who made up a fake excuse. As for how they found out, 43% of employers caught employees by checking out their social media posts.
- Now, calling in sick when your not means you have to come up with some good excuses, and apparently a lot of people arenât that great at delivering believable ones. The site asked employers to reveal the craziest excuses theyâve ever received, and some of them are doozies. They include:
- A bear was in employee's yard and they were afraid to come out.
- Employee's phone exploded and it hurt their hand.
- Employee ate a toothpick in his food at restaurant.
- Employee broke his arm wrestling a female bodybuilder.
- Employee called in "fat" because uniform didn't fit.
- Dog swallowed employee's car keys so she was waiting until it came out.
- Employee left his clothes at the laundry mat.
- Employee did not have enough gas to get to work.
- Employee had to re-schedule a new manicure because some of their artificial nails fell off.
- Employee was not sure how the solar eclipse would affect them so it would be safer to stay at home.
Source: BizJournals